Sedikit kontroversi.... Apakah partai right-wing Austria sebetulnya partai kaum neo-Nazi atau partai kaum marketing....? :-) ---------------------------------------------------- March 3, 2000 A Theory on Haider's Allure: No Ideology, More Marketing By ROGER COHEN BAD KLEINKIRCHHEIM, Austria -- Here in the midst of picture-postcard Austria -- pine-clad slopes, sun glistening on the snow, rosy-cheeked families sipping mulled wine -- it is something of a surprise to encounter Matthias Krenn and his modern political theories. "Political populism is just modern marketing," Mr. Krenn said casually as he sat in the lobby of one of the hotels he owns. "In politics today, you have to sell your services like any other product. So you listen carefully to what each person wants and respond accordingly. That is why J�rg Haider is such a successful political marketer." Mr. Krenn, 40, is a hotelier from the southern province of Carinthia, the heartland of Haiderism, and a representative figure of the young entrepreneurs who have helped thrust Mr. Haider's catch-all Freedom Party to power. While the world tends to see Mr. Haider, who has made -- and later apologized for -- statements praising aspects of Hitler's rule, as a xenophobic rightist, Mr. Krenn sees him as Austria's answer to Margaret Thatcher. For him, Mr. Haider's message has less to do with Nazi revisionism or anti-immigrant vitriol than with market reform. It is about less state. Deregulation. Sweeping privatizations. Reduced bureaucracy. An end to the division of the spoils in Austria among members of the long-dominant Social Democratic and conservative People's parties. Mr. Krenn's is a popular view in Austria. About one-third of the support that took the Freedom Party into national government in February for the first time comes from entrepreneurs, particularly in the small companies like the Krenn hotel group that dominate the economy. "To understand Mr. Haider, you must see that he's a late edition of the neo-conservative wave that totally passed Austria by in the 1980's and 1990's," said Lothar H�belt, a historian sympathetic to him. Certainly, Austria's political system was long distinguished by immobility. During three decades of Social-Democratic-led rule, stability came before market reform, and state jobs were useful to reward political loyalty. The state still owns the national telephone company and main tobacco corporation; as such, it is now a European anomaly. But a look at how Mr. Haider operates in Carinthia, where he won 42 percent of the vote in the regional election last year, suggests that promoting the free market is merely one ingredient of his heady brew. [Mr. Haider quit on Feb. 28 as leader of the Freedom Party but retained his post as governor of Carinthia. The resignation was widely seen as a maneuver to shield himself from any unpopularity the new government may encounter.] Take Thatcherism, add a dose of Robin Hood, some designer labels, a touch of Austria-first bigotry, a dollop of straight talk and fanatical physical fitness, and the seductive magician of modern European politics emerges, a man who has taken his party from 4 to 27 percent of the vote in the past 15 years. In downtown Klagenfurt, seat of Mr. Haider's regional government, "J�rgs Treff" is a popular meeting place. In this Freedom Party office, young people can surf the Internet or play video games on computers provided by the governor. Posters plastered on the windows show a baby brandishing a check for 5,700 Schillings, about $407. It is a reference to Mr. Haider's promise to hand out monthly checks to mothers in order to strengthen the family and boost Austria's falling birth rate. So, the prophet of leaner government, more individual responsibility and tighter state budgets is also the proponent of an ambitious new program of state handouts? Well, yes, if that is what brings in the votes. "The children's check cannot be financed," said Franz Pacher, a businessman who is president of the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce and who opposes Mr. Haider. "It could cost as much as $175 million a year, or close to one-tenth of the state budget. But of course the promise has won him a lot of popularity." In an interview, Mr. Haider said that the program could be financed and that the checks would be paid: "You see, on the one hand I am a kind of Margaret Thatcher pushing lean government and the end of party influence. On the other, I am a new Social Democrat, pushing family values and taking care of the smaller people against the powerful." He smiled and added: "That is why I like to say that I am not to the left or the right of my opponents. I am simply ahead of them." Just how long Mr. Haider can continue to appeal both to rising entrepreneurs and to the less privileged, who like the look of his largesse, is the question now posed by the Freedom Party's entry into government. Karl-Heinz Grasser, the 31-year-old national finance minister and a home-grown Carinthian prot�g� of Mr. Haider, is attempting to do on a national scale something of what the party leader has done locally. He has vowed to eliminate about 9,000 state jobs, sell off state industries, raise the retirement age and reduce pensions for early retirees in order to bring the budget deficit down to 1.7 percent of Austria's total output from well over 2 percent. On the other hand, Mr. Grasser wants to increase state support for the family by extending fully paid maternity and paternity leaves and by introducing other measures that Mr. Haider said would include extending the promised "child checks" to a national level. That would cost close to $3 billion -- about what the finance minister has promised to cut this year in other areas. "We want to do it the American way," said Thomas Prinzhorn, a prominent Freedom Party member of Parliament who owns a large paper company. "We're Austria's only free-market party. At the same time, Mr. Haider feels passionate about the family and social justice, so we have to balance these things." The Haiderian "balance" appears to involve other elements. Michael Stattman, a Klagenfurt businessman, said that when Mr. Grasser was in charge of economic policy in Carinthia, he tried to impose an "Austrians-first" principle on hiring for building sites. This angered some entrepreneurs, who faced the loss of cheaper foreign labor. Mr. Prinzhorn has also made some notable anti-foreigner statements, including a remark during the national election campaign last year that foreigners in Austria were getting free hormone treatment from the country's health services "in order to increase their fertility." He has since apologized. Max Hofmann, a leader of a business group supporting Mr. Haider called the Circle of Freedom Party Enterprises, said there was nothing xenophobic about such remarks or the party's approach to business. Both simply reflected the fact that, in a small country, "We can only invite in foreign people when we have enough work." Mr. Hoffman, the owner of a central-heating business, said the Freedom Party is a post-ideological party that wants to scale back the state but also to appeal to workers. "To think in terms of appealing either to workers or to entrepreneurs is the thinking of the past," he said. "There is no more class struggle. There is only the joint interest of workers and management in making Austria a good place to do business." Up to now, Mr. Haider has been highly successful in promoting this message. His support among entrepreneurs has been matched by strong support from blue-collar workers who fear the loss of jobs to foreigners and seem to feel more identification with Mr. Haider's slickly marketed nationalism than with the socialism of old. In Klagenfurt, one catch phrase promoted by the governor is "the Silicon Alps" -- the slogan of several new technology companies that have set up shop here. At the same time, Mr. Haider loves to promote local folklore against "cultural globalization." The clear idea is a very broad laptops-to-loden-coats appeal. For Mr. Pacher, the leader of the Klagenfurt Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Haider is simply "the master of disguises, the great European illusionist." But for Mr. Krenn, the hotelier, the Haider message is consistent: "The old government was selling you tired wares badly. I'm selling you new goods and I'm doing it well."
